If you read gaming news with any regularity, you will often hear someone opine that Nintendo should just give up the hardware business and focus on software. No more consoles, just become a third-pary developer and put Mario on everything from Sony and Microsoft's consoles to digital distribution platforms like Steam and GOG to iOS and Android.

Considering Nintendo's a prideful company that's sitting on enough cold, hard cash to keep operating at a loss for a decade plus, that seems exceedingly unlikely but this week's poll is not about what's going to happen but what you think should happen.

So let's hear it lovely and smartly-dressed readers. Should Nintendo forego hardware and focus exclusively on software? Maybe you think it should keep its handheld business but drop the console side. Heck, if you think Nintendo should just pack its bags and leave the video game business altogether, I want to hear it (just don't expect me to invite you over to Christmas dinner).

Vote in the poll then fight it out in the comments. You can even email us your thoughts, opinions and banana bread recipes at SuperPACpodcast@gmail.com. In addition to our weekly EA-bashing, EZK and I will discuss this very topic on next week's podcast so please look forward to it.

Nintendo makes a profit just fine, especially thanks to the 3DS. which also had a slow start. I see the WiiU picking up, and the next generation being Nintendo making up for their mistakes in the past.

Well what I said was "serious" hardware specs and what I mean by that is current generation technology that developers would be comfortable with. Not hardware from generations past that might not be exciting to develop for.

Well mine is less a complaint about being able to compete with the 360 and PS3 and more a complaint that using hardware more common to x86 that seems to get games (ports) to market faster than most other means, the hardest being the PS3 of course.

Oh, I'm not denying that (though we don't have specific numbers to know for sure). I was simply countering the point that Nintendo makes a lot of money from hardware. Since they're selling at a loss, they can't make money from it, at least directly. They can make money indirectly from third-party games sold for it, however, which I forgot to account for (not that there's much of that yet).

Sorry, but I cringe at the thought of not having Link or Mario on my TV upstairs... Unless they develop a handheld that links to your TV (at which point is it really a true handheld?) I vote they stay the course. The Wii was quite a successful little console with a lot of really awesome games on it as well as the cop-outs that were there just for a money grab, and god knows the SNES was an amazing piece of hardware for its time as well.

Personally I'd love to see Nintendo enter some sort of partnership with Sony. Sony could provide the console itself with its reputation for solid hardware. And Nintendo would provide console exclusives with the IPs we have all come to love.
This mega console would get my money every generation.

I'm not sure this is a good idea just yet. The Wii U flopped, sure, but a lot of that was due to not having any killer apps at release. Imagine if it had sold with a new (3D, not sidescroller) Mario game, or a new Zelda. But this is just one flop - the Wii outsold the PS3 and X360, and made more profit per unit sold (which is to say, it made profit period per unit sold). This came after losing out to Sony the previous two generations (GC and N64), and being the unquestioned winner for two gens before that (SNES and NES).

The Wii U is flopping now, but things may turn around if/when it gets some good games released. Or, who knows, the PS4 and XBOX720 may do even worse. The trends don't look good for Nintendo right now, but there's still plenty of time for them to turn things around.

I've been saying this for a couple of years now. I don't have any of their portable hardware, and they seem popular, so perhaps that is an option, but in the competitive console business, I think they are done.

However, they do make some quality games. It would be great to bring some of them to competing platforms.